Dear Percy Projectors:
I have to confess, when Mr. Mills asked me if I’d like to lead the discussion
of Chapter Four, my first reaction was, “Oh no, there goes my Little Way!”
But I figured I could still fit in my re-runs of “Perry Mason” and my obligatory cat duties. I’m not interested in NBC’s Olympic coverage, anyhow
(cf. my Letter to the Editor forthcoming in the Washington Post).
I admit I was flattered, and intimidated, and I hope my attempt to understand Percy will help me to understand him better, maybe in a different light.
I really enjoyed Mr. Serafin’s video. It distills Binx’s comments on the Search, separating them into a coherent essay. I believe Percy always wanted someone to make movies out of his novels. I think actress Karen Black at one
time had the rights to “The Moviegoer.” I don’t know what happened. Mr. Serafin gave us a taste of the book in a different medium. (Black, you may recall, played Myrtle Wilson in “The Great Gatsby.”)
Chapter Four opens with Sam Yerger. One book on Percy, which has interested me is William Rodney Allen’s 1986 “Walker Percy: A Southern Wayfarer,” because it considers his American influences, an unusual approach. He follows
sources and allusions to Twain, Faulkner, Hemingway and others among five of the six novels.
“ ’The Moviegoer’s’ Hemingway is Sam Yerger,” Allen writes.
He makes good points, leading me to a multiple-choice question: who does Sam most resemble?
a.) Hemingway
b.) Bellow’s Henderson the Rain King (partly because of his resemblance to
Hemingway)
c.) Lyle Saxon (author Southern studies, including “Gumbo Ya-Ya”—Sam wrote
books on the South, including my favorite, “Yambilaya Ya-Ya.”)
d.) W.J. Cash (author of “The Mind of the South”—Sam lectured on “the mind
of the south” [p. 179])
e.) All of the above
f.) None of the above
If you answered “All of the above,” what is Percy doing?
Another multiple choice: which strikes you as a likely source of “The
Moviegoer”?
a.) Dostoevesky’s “Notes From Underground” (explored by the great Percy
scholar Lewis A. Lawson, and in a book by Jessica Hooten Wilson)
b.) Warren’s “All the King’s Men” (Allen Shepherd suggests parallels in a
1971 article)
c.) “The Great Gatsby” (my choice…Hahaha)
d.) All of the above
Chapter Four isn’t my favorite section, partly because it pulls Binx out of New Orleans.
The broken conversations Binx and Kate hear when they eavesdrop back at Aunt Emily’s house is another instance of incomplete communication. Why does Percy set it up that way?
There is a series of failures all through Chapter Four. The Harold Graebner incident is one. In a previous chapter, Binx tells us that seeing Jews turns him on to the Search (p. 88-89), yet when he meets up with Sidney Gross (p. 185) on the train, he would prefer to ignore him. Is that another failure?
It’s a compelling argument. Suicide is a recurring theme throughout Percy’s work, especially given the incidents in his own family. I’m just not sure about Binx’s father; I think the idea is contrary to the comic tone of the novel. The issue is more prominent in Kate’s case. Sam and her mother
reasonably suspect that Kate is trying to kill herself. Is Kate’s pill-popping another case of failure? Or does Percy have something else in mind? He has said suicide is the only cure for depression; is Kate depressed, as Aunt Emily believes, or is something else plaguing her?
I haven’t talked about Percy’s descriptive powers that I love so much.
The train ride above the cities of the dead, the picture of a deserted Jackson, Miss., the howling wind in Chicago (threatening like Keats’s “Keen Fitful Gusts”)….I’ll leave off here, and let you enjoy it for yourselves.
Finally, I have to ask…what is the point of the memory Binx relates about visiting Johnny Weismuller’s pool? (Gatsby ended up in a swimming pool 😊. )
Naturally, you don’t have to respond to all of my concerns—hope I didn’t
talk too much.
--Leonard
Dear Percy Fans:
The outside world gets more distracting every day, so I thought I’d
re-edit my Chapter Four comments and make them a little more succinct and
offer them as a series of questions, from which you can pick and choose.
1.) Starting again with Sam Yerger, how do you regard his character? Is
Percy making fun of him as a chronicler of the South? Aunt Emily holds him in high regard, it seems. Were you surprised to find out he had proposed to Kate?
2.) Binx and Kate’s relationship takes a big leap in Chapter Four. He proposes marriage for the second time, and they sleep together. What does Kate have going for her that Sharon lacks for Binx?
3.) I love his vision of their life together, eating oysters on
Magazine Street. At the end of Chapter Two, he offers to calm her fears by
getting coffee in the French Quarter. What else does Binx have going for her?
4.) What did you think about the eavesdropping from that little alcove above the party in Emily’s house? Broken or indirect communication seems to be a recurring theme or technique in Percy’s work. That newspaper Binx reads
5.) Death seems to haunt the trip to Chicago. The roomettes are like “coffins,” the train flies above the cemeteries in Metaire, fields in Mississippi are “haunted like battlegrounds” and “the genie-soul of Chicago flaps down like a buzzard.” Since Binx contemplates his relationship with his father in this chapter, are these images relevant to those thoughts? Does Binx compare himself to his father? His failure to satisfy him years ago in the museum bothers him, but I think his failure to accept his being the godfather to Harold’s baby is relevant; and to me, it’s a way of making light of the potential seriousness of the Field museum incident. Some say it indicates his father’s suicide—do you agree?
6.) Similarly, there is the element of Kate’s drug use. Sam and Emily are convinced she is suicidal. But Kate denies it. Is Kate suicidal? Or is that a case of Percy’s making light of another serious issue?
I hope I’m not being a nuisance by posting twice. I wouldn’t mind
Thanks again for listening,
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